Five weeks after giving birth, Jade Beall took a candid photo of herself with her son and shared it with friends and family online.
What she didn’t expect was for the photo to go viral, be shared tens of thousands of times, and completely change her life.
“The photo was of me with my son, breastfeeding, just holding him completely bare, both of us,” she told BuzzFeed News. “I had rolls in places I never had in my life, I had dark circles under my eyes, I was raw, and I didn’t photoshop any part of the photo to make me look different than I actually did right then.”
The positive reaction to the photo led Beall to start A Beautiful Project.
“Many women resonated with the photos and wanted to be photographed,” she said. That’s when she realised she could help mothers celebrate, and love, their post-pregnancy bodies.
For the project, the 35-year-old Arizona-based photographer took hundreds of women and featured un-photoshopped snaps of them alongside personal stories of how they built their self-esteem.
Mothers who described themselves as “wrinkly” and “fat” were now being encouraged to embrace their beauty “just as they are”.
“The reaction has been rad,” Beall said. “I have made friends and photographed women all over the world.”
She added: “I have helped hundreds if not thousands of women feel seen while inspiring the beginning of a practice of self-love and sisterhood.”
You can find out more about the project on Facebook and the Beautiful Project website.
